Tag Archives: alliance

It’s been long since your profile has been created on the matrimonial site. You know that, because your 28th birthday is just a few weeks away. There would have been several hits to your profile, provided you have put up a profile picture that is either cute or dashing or both. A meager 18% of those hits would have resulted in some kind of action being taken – one of them being, horoscopes exchanging hands (via email, off late).

If you are a guy, this is a testing time. You are not allowed to see the photograph of the gal, till the horoscopes match, on both sides. You curse the ones who preach about practicing patience!You: “Mom, can I see her photograph? If I like her, then try to match.”Mom:“You think you are funny eh? 28 years you have waited no, can’t you wait few more days?”If you are a gal, you simply go shopping, not giving a damn. 😀

A horoscope is a very tricky entity!! It behaves inversely proportional to your taste, if at all there is a scope. Being a guy, if you have liked a gal (photo or in person or through skype) then take it in writing that 90% of the time the horoscope will stand in your way. The astrologer will tell your mom that only 13/36 houses match and in the rest, the planets refuse to come to terms with each other and that their bilateral talks have failed. You get used to the 3-idiot-terminology: Rahu-Ketu-Shani. You’re crestfallen every time this happens and if you keep a count, you’d know it happens quite often.
However, usually you are told that as per the “tradition” you’d not get to see the gal or her photograph until both your horoscopes have satisfactorily matched. The astrologer plays a very important role here. Knowing you, your parents don’t give out the name & address of the astrologer. They believe in the ‘anything/anyone can be bought for a price’ fundamental. Been there, done that?! 😉

This is a stage where being a girl is the toughest, especially if you don’t like yourself being photographed. Even if you like being photographed, you’d be irritated at the way the photographer instructs you to pose for the MARITAL PICTURE – “keep your palm under your cheek..” “give a lovely smile…” – how can she smile when she’s asked to strike a “thinker’s pose”?!! However artificial they may seem, the studio pictures are considered your finest ever.

You come into the picture whenever there is a match in the horoscopes.Being a guy, you would wait for that moment and get excited as you can boast with your guy friends that you now get to officially see a gal’s photograph and meet her as well.Being a gal, you take a deep sigh (unless you are as eager as the guy! 😉 ) and you tell your mom to show you the guy’s photograph only if he’s a notch better than Hrithik Roshan or Tom Cruise. You also make it a point to tell her that you’re doing this only for her. But you do go shopping, reasoning that you need to buy something new (dress, accessories, shoes, cell phone! 😛 ) for that occasion when you go meet that prospect of a guy! 😉

The night before the eventual meet, you try to but get no sleep. You’re worried about tomorrow, the day you get to meet your prospective spouse. You’re more worried about it going all wrong. You’re even more worried about it going just right! Your sleep is completely lost when you receive a text message from a friend stating “All the best. Eagerly waiting to ‘like’ that change in your ‘relationship status’ on Facebook tomorrow.”.That ‘tomorrow’ never dies. This and more, next time! 🙂

PS:Based on what I’m seeing my ‘eligible’ friends experience over the last 3-4 years as well as on a few of my own trial & errors. It’s fun to officially meet a total stranger for an alliance, each-n-every time. It’s even more fun(tastic) if you happen to fall in love with that beautiful/handsome stranger! 😉

Now you are aware that your profile has been created on the matrimonial site(s) and you have no other go but to go with the flow (you feel happy, somewhere deep inside but then you’ll not admit it). So that night after everyone goes to sleep, you go online to check what your parents (or revenge-inspired siblings, as some of you stated in your comments) have put about you in the profile they created. You sit upright to re-read unbelievable stuff written in praise of you. You’ll be amazed about some stuff you get to read, some of which you didn’t know about yourself.
If you are a guy, you’ll be wondering or rather worried about the ‘religious, god-fearing’ personality of yours being portrayed. You’ll silently giggle (with a hiccup) at the ‘non-drinker’ ‘non-smoker’ label tagged to you.
If you are a gal, you’ll be happy to know that you are (still) slim/average and fair! Also you being ‘Traditional’ and ‘great cook’ may put you in repetitive splits of laughter! 😉

You’ll be elated, internally that is, to know from your mom that your profile has had over a 100 views in the first 24 hours and a handful of them have expressed their desire to give you a try. You feel like you are very much in demand, what with 100 odd views on your profile. However in that period of hyped excitement, you won’t realize that 90% of those views would be from onsite stalkers who get into the matrimony site just to watch your photos.

Meanwhile, you’ll have to bear those worthy friends of yours who’ll make your life all colorful with their ‘advices’ and ‘anecdotes’! They would tell you stuff that you’d digest at face-value.“Since you got a choice to select, say no to any face that’s not better than a GeorgeClooney/KatrinaKaif!”
“Make sure you meet at least a dozen of them, in person. Nothing wrong in safely flirting with a few, before you settle with the right (13th – they don’t say this) one…”

Now that you’ve got the official license to go for the kill, you start digging profiles and find some faces interesting.
If you are a guy and if you set aside about 10 such profiles and send them a message expressing your desire to match with them – 7 of them will automatically reject you by mentioning that they would need a husband who earns a buck, way beyond your wildest imagination. Two more would need you to be what you are not – a vegetarian, a non-vegetarian, a drinker, a non-drinker, a non-smoker, a qualified MBA from an exceptional B-school – and that last remaining gal would already have a boyfriend.
If you are a gal and if you set aside about 10 such profiles and send them a message expressing your desire to match with them – 3 of them would be fake profiles. 3 more would shorter in height or have a beer-belly. 3 of them wouldn’t look like their profile picture and the last remaining guy would already have a boyfriend. Surprised? Don’t be. 😛

Well then…eventually as time lapses, you realize that matchmaking on matrimonial sites is more of snakes, than ladder. The one profile that may head your way will now get blocked by the next major hurdle – the Horoscope. How your own stars stand in the wrong boxes, and hence in your path to marital bliss (??) is something that the best of astrologers havent been able to establish! Yet they are all set to make a match of it, at a fee ofcourse. More on this, next time! 🙂

PS: Based on what I’m seeing my ‘eligible’ friends experience over the last 3-4 years. It’s fun to be a friend of someone eligible, if you have already been through that stage!! 😉

Well, so you turn 27 which means that it has been two years now, since they’ve been trying to fix you up with your life partner. You’d be lucky, if some profiles would have come your way.
If you are a guy, you’d meet the mom-approved-profile-girls (one at a time, that is) at a coffee shop in the evening or at a restaurant (she’s allowed for lunch only!). You would consider each of these proposal meets as a date and keep a mental count of it. 😉
If you are a girl, you would love to reject a few profiles by finding faults in the guy. You always wanted to find fault in guys, admit it! 😉

If you are a guy, your mom tells you to stay at home to celebrate your 27th birthday with an emotional “Who knows about next time? You could be celebrating it with your spouse! You can celebrate with your friends tomorrow in daytime!” You tell the same to your friends by calling them up and you get labeled as “Mommy’s boy!”If you are a girl, your mom makes your dad to apply the same logic. You tell the same to your friends by sending them text messages (if there are still a few free msgs left, else missed calls) and you end up labeled as “Daddy’s girl!”

After your birthday cake is cut and neatly eaten, all of you retire to your bedrooms.
Your mom wouldn’t get sound sleep for sure. She’d wake your dad up from his snoring slumber with a “Do you even care? Look at how peacefully you are sleeping, as if everything is alright!!!”“I’m sorry, I fell asleep at night when normally everyone tends to sleep” he’d reply sarcastically like a married man does.“It’s ok. Now listen to me!” she would make her move, either not sensing sarcasm or simply choosing to ignore it.“Do you know your son/daughter turned 27 yrs old today?” she’d ask a vague invalid question (as per your dad).
He’d interrupt as usual like men do with a “Don’t I know what I did 28 yrs ago? I’m still paying for it!” like a cool cheeky guy.“You and your jokes…Ha Ha…happy? Now listen to me, seriously!” she’d sit up.“Ok I’m all ears…what is it?” he would come to his marital senses, in the hope of not having to eat the next morning’s breakfast outside.“Good, go get your laptop. You need to post the Matrimonial profile right now!!” she’d say switching the bedroom lights on.“Can’t we do it first thing in the morning?” he’d definitely try to win a lost battle, for that one last time, but then seeing her anger-laced-eyes pop out, he’d quickly get up and boot his laptop.

You get up in the morning, thinking it’s a new day in this new year of yours and wonder what’s special for breakfast. And when you see your mom smiling big time at you as you approach the dining table, you don’t tend to sense anything spooky! That’s when life treats you to a freaking surprise! 😀
You’d get the biggest gift for your birthday, a very much unexpected one…a shocker, so to say.
She proudly tells you about your newly created Matrimonial profile stressing on the fact that it was dad who actually created it. Such a safe ploy, since he isn’t around, in case you decide to blast like a bomb! You end up not even realizing what you are having at breakfast.

When you meet your friends, they’d enquire about the party at home the previous night. You’d brush it with an “It was just a quiet family get together. We just cut the cake and ate it at midnight. My parents gifted me new watch, maybe to remind me of the times ahead.”“Why what happened? Why are you talking like a failed poet?” one of them would sense the look on your face and ask you this question.
Intuitively or not, you’d tell them about how your life changed overnight, that you now have one more online profile along with the FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN and ZURKERones you proudly possess. You’d be so secretive that they’d probe you further with a “What?! Tell us exactly what happened!!!” sporting a concerned look on their faces.
Finally you succumb, letting them know that you are now proudly on display for receiving matrimonial alliances on one of the prime matrimonial sites. You see the expression change on their faces, a few of them holding on to their mouths to suppress laughter while the shameless rest Laugh Out Loud as they sway in random directions.“The fun has begun, we’ll see that you are taken (in) the right way” they declare in unison.

All you do is stand in the corner smiling sheepishly…not knowing exactly, what you have to do.
More on this, next time. 😀

PS: Based on what I’m seeing my ‘eligible’ friends experience over the last 3 years. It’s fun to be a friend of someone who has a matrimonial profile, especially if you don’t have one! 😉

There comes a stage in life where you feel that things have come to a standstill. Things don’t tend to go the way they are expected to, nor do they show any sign of taking the path you would have laid out in your mind for it to go. To say it in one brutal manner – You are left stranded and alone!

Life is all rosy till you complete that 25th birthday of yours. You’d have finished your college and either lived through those fresh years of corporate life or just entered the grill, after you are done with your post-graduation. But the time you strike 25, you like it or not, life kick-starts what can be termed as your ‘Quarter Life Crisis’.

Parents become all alert, with respect to your marriage alliance. If their child is a girl, they feel they have already waited too long. They even curse themselves for being liberal all these years. The cobwebs are lifted off the horoscope they made of yours, a quarter century ago.

There is a smile on the face of the Xerox shop owner when he sees your dad approaching with your horoscope in hand, for it means good business to him.“25 copies please?”your dad would request. Look at the confidence he has on your horoscope.“Sir, if you order 50 copies I offer a 10% discount on the bill” informs the photocopy guy, dead sure that your dad would take the bait.“Wokay I say, make it 50. You never know!”he succumbs to the sales pitch, thereby reassuring his faith & confidence in the position of your stars!

Mom is happy to see that Dad is very much enthusiastic about fixing your nuptial, for she has no clue about the discounted deal her husband has made compromising on the confidence he had on you and your stars. She rewards him for his hard work, let’s say, with a pippin’ hot coffee, if nothing else. 😉

They then plan to post (e-mailing, is still new fashion!) a copy each in an enclosed envelope to their ‘Contacts’ – the ever-ready mama-mamis, the on-their-toe relatives and the friends-of-friends. This process goes on till they really (put you in a fix? 😛 ) fix you with someone.

If your alliance is fixed before your 26th birthday, you are spared of all that is to come.
If not, eyebrows and fingers, both are raised at various factors and maybe even at you.

Apart from the rhetorical IIM-IIT-Onsite questions, personal questions start to pop up:“Is something wrong with him/her??”
“Is he/she too healthy? Is he/she too thin??”As time passes,questions give way for guesses:“I think there’s something terrible awaiting as per his/her horoscope. The planets seem to be not in the right houses.”
“I feel he/she expects an alliance from an even more affluent family.”Eventually, it comes to rumors:“I heard the guy/gal has an affair with a college mate, and so is rejecting every proposal. I saw him/her hugging someone in a Facebook photo!”
“The guy’s family I heard is demanding too much/The gal says that she doesn’t want to stay with the in-laws post-marriage.”

Amidst all this, you silently celebrate your 27th birthday. 😀
Yet, it’s not over for you, for you are not spared. You are now ready to be auctioned online, in a matrimonial site. 😉
More on this, next time.

PS:Based on what I’m seeing my ‘eligible’ friends experience over the last 2 years. It’s fun only when you are just an observer. 😉

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Me! Myself! Moi!

Though unaware, I'm usually up to something. I'm an ex-introvert who talks more than he write and writes more than he's capable of. I try to make light of everything, for I believe that I'm stuck in a dark tunnel.
All said and done, I named this blog space as 'All in the Mind...', for the very lack of it.